Two ElementTree questions

[mirandacascade at yahoo.com]

1) It appears as if the following logic works for determining whether
an element is a parent:

# assume elem is an ElementTree element
if (elem.getchildren() == None):
    print 'this element is not a parent'
else:
    print 'this element is a parent'

My question is this: are there any other ways of determining whether an
element is a parent, and if so, are they preferable to the method
above? (I don't have a definition for 'preferable'; I'm hoping the
reply to this question will suggest why a different method may be
preferable.)

2) At one time, I thought I saw some notes indicating that the
getchildren() method will be deprecated.  Now, however, I cannot locate
those notes.  Has the getchildren() method been deprecated, or will it
be deprecated?